Racket Asks: What Games Defined the Atari 2600?

It has been quite a while since I had played with an actual Atari 2600 or even played 2600 versions of many of the games in it’s library. It was never much of a conscience decision, it has just never really happened in the last 20 years or so.

This past month, I figured it was about time that I revisited the first video game console I ever interacted with and I ordered a nice 2600 and a pile of games. I plan to explore the essentials of the library (and maybe some more obscure gems – give recommendations here), get to know the original hardware well, and share my experiences with the community as I go along.

This is the first time that I can think of where I’ve planned to really spend a good chunk of time with one retro console in particular, and I can’t think of a better place to start. After a bit of time, I plan on piecing together a number of Atari 2600 installments of our series of guides and adding to the existing ones. My first stop is The Games That Defined the Atari 2600. Which leads us to this poll. I’ve already tallied up the nominations from this forum thread and now it’s time to vote on the most defining of the bunch. Let me know what you think! (You can choose up to 10)

I picked Halo 2600, since it shows where the Atari 2600 has been and continues to go as a home brewers console.

The 3 bad games I voted for, one shows greed, one shows greed with a hit movie, both show zero respect to proper development time. The other was picked as what did happen when a rival first party decided to release games on a “technically inferior” console and how that affected the industry.

Great question. Somehow I missed Space Invaders when I scanned the list, though.

For me, the games that defined the system reflect one of two things. One is what made the system popular — basically good ports of arcade titles, like SI, Asteroids, and Missile Command.

The other is gaming innovation, games for which there was no arcade equivalent and that made the 2600 the only system you needed in the early 80s. River Raid, Pitfall, and Empire Strikes Back fall into this category, for me.

Thanks for doing this survey. I had to give a vote to Megamania because I feel it’s the strongest game on the 2600, even though I don’t think it “defines” it. Most of my other choices were for the spectacular arcade ports like Missle Command, Berzerk, Asteroids, etc. Almost all the games listed in the survey have tremendous gameplay, so much that they are still playable today. What a great system!

I really wanted to pick 11! In the end I gave Star Raiders spot to Super Breakout. Star Raiders is OK on the 2600, but it’s really a defining game for the Atari 8-bit computers. Play that instead. Super Breakout on the other hand is still a compelling reason to own a 2600 today.

I think that Space Invaders started the 2600 on its rise to super-stardom. It became available for the 2600 at a perfect moment, when the arcades were riding the very first shockwave of a megahit. The concept of bringing a big arcade experience home was defined in the Space Inavders 2600 cart.

To me it was Adventure. It had so many firsts.. I enjoyed Pitfall and played for hours so I picked that as well. I also picked ET, I am probably one of the few that enjoyed ET. ET was the beginning of the end for the Atari 2600. I have two units and I still go back and play them